1. Technical Field
The present invention embodiments pertain to conducting fantasy sports or other competitions. In particular, the present invention embodiments pertain to conducting fantasy sports or other competitions by providing selection of new teams at the expiration of various time intervals (e.g., a week, a day, etc., and preferably less than the duration of a sports season), where users may selectively participate in free and fee based competitions to accumulate points and earn cash and/or merchandise type rewards.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Fantasy sports leagues provide a manner for the average sports fan to participate in their preferred sport in the role of a virtual general manager. Basically, league participants initially organize a fantasy sports league (with friends or other associates) and draft or select players for their fantasy team in accordance with a participant approved selection scheme, typically similar to the manner professional sports leagues conduct player drafts. A popular type of drafting scheme for fantasy sports leagues includes “dynasty” type leagues, where participants maintain a predetermined amount of their team players over the course of a few seasons, and may further draft new players. In addition, “auction” type fantasy sports leagues provide league participants with a certain monetary value, where each professional player eligible for selection by a participant is assigned a salary. The league participants may allocate the provided money towards player selection in any suitable manner that produces the requisite amount of players for each player position on the participant sports team.
Once the draft process has been completed for the fantasy sports league, each participant has a team of their selected players. The results for a fantasy sports league are based upon individual statistical results from the particular sport. For example, with respect to a fantasy football league, league participants each draft professional football players onto their team for different positions (e.g., quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, kicker, defense, reserve players, etc.). The number and assortment of different players on a participant team is predetermined and approved by the league participants prior to commencement of the fantasy sport season.
Once the sport season begins, the drafted players of the fantasy teams compete in actual games of their sport. The player individual statistics for each game is converted into fantasy points in a predefined manner agreed upon by the league participants. There are generally two types of fantasy scoring systems. A head-to-head type system enables a participant to compete (or “play”) against another participant team in a given week. The fantasy team that accumulates the most points in the week based on drafted player performance in actual games is awarded a victory, where the quantity of victories during the fantasy season determines “playoff” qualifications and seeding.
At the conclusion of the fantasy “regular” season, fantasy sports teams in the league may qualify for the “playoffs”. In this scenario, the fantasy teams compete in a head-to-head manner as described above with the winning teams advancing to a subsequent round to compete against each other, while losing teams are eliminated. The winning team of this elimination tournament is deemed the winner of the fantasy sports league.
Another type of fantasy scoring system is based upon cumulative points earned by participant sports teams. In particular, each participant team in the fantasy sports league accumulates points based upon the performance of drafted players as described above. Once the sport season is completed, the fantasy sports team that has accumulated the most total points is deemed the winner of the fantasy sports league.
During the fantasy sports season, participants are generally allowed to trade, add and drop players to their team in order to improve the team. Since only one draft is conducted during the fantasy sports season, a participant team is built through the draft at the beginning of the fantasy sports season. If a drafted player does not participate in the actual sporting event (e.g., injured, traded, released, etc.), the participant must adjust the team roster accordingly. These types of events can be catastrophic for a league participant. For example, when a participant first round draft selection becomes seriously injured early in the fantasy sports season, the chances for the participant to succeed in the fantasy sports league are greatly diminished.